File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1997/97-04-23.130, message 10


Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 10:41:58 +0200 (MET DST)
From: bwanika <h961138-AT-stud.hoe.se>
Subject: Re: BHA: Fetishism [3]


At 09:37 21/04/97 +0100, you wrote:
>(An uncorrected post, apologies)
>
>Don't you people have any Work to do? Strewth, no sooner do I commit myself
>to leaving this issue alone than a host of replies emerges. Anyway, it seems
>to me that we have hit on an subject which is kinda central to the CR approach.
>
>To reply to Howie first:
>
>
>>"[...]social collectivities, such as states, associations, business
>>corporations, foundations, [...] must be treated as solely the resultants
>>and modes of organization of the particular acts of individual persons,
>>since these alone can be treated as agents [...]"
>
>But this is exactly what I am NOT saying. I have _never_, _never_ argued
>that states 'must be treated as SOLELY the resultants.....' To argue that
>the TMSA is framed around the notion of Human agency is not to say that the
>structures aren't causally implicated. Human agents act in structured
>context, and both elements are indispensable to any adequate sociological
>explanation. The point is, as RB makes clear, that there is an ontological
>hiatus between agents and structures (but what this means is a different
>matter) and that we must categorically distinguish between the powers
>pertaining to agents (who are marked by the notion of intentionality) and
>structures (who are not).
>
>Equally, however, as I have pointed out previously RB is trying to sail
>between methodological individualism and methodological holism, and getting
>the balance right is not easy. But there is no reason to presume that he
>would reject everything Weber said on this issue. What Weber does not
>sufficiently appreciate is the way the relations between individual and the
>products of those individuals and the relations between those products are
>necessary for any sociological issue. 
>
>In a previous post Howie also registered some unease at my claim that
>relations are abstract. However, when I first posted this, some weeks ago, I
>followed it immediately by:
>
> 'We need, however, to be careful here, for structure as an abstract entity
>does not refer merely to a concept nor yet a theoretical entity. Relations
>really exist, independently of our concept of them. They are abstract only
>in the sense that they exist as relations between their relata.'
>
>The relations between myself and my partner are abstract in this sense, but
>this does not mean that they are not real, nor causally implicated in our
>interactions.
>
>Then from Howie:
>
>>Finally, I would be interested in hearing more from Colin (whenever it is
>>convenient, of course) on how bringing the individual back in helps him deal
>>with issues in the field of IR. While I appreciate his general point that
>>simply treating the state as an individual writ large has serious negative
>>consequences, I'd be curious to see how the differences in theoretical
>>approches might influence analysis of particular cases.
>
>This is a really difficult (well not so much difficult as complex) one to
>answer in such a forum as this. Part of the problem for my discipline is
>that its whole analytical rationale has been framed on what is known as the
>'level-of-anaylsis problem'. I simply haven't got the time to go into the
>ways the discipline misconstrues this as the agent-structure problem, but
>suffice to say that the LOA problem is basically portrayed as this:
>
>International Structures
>
>        Vs
>
>States
>
>        Vs
>
>Bureacracies
>
>        Vs
>
>Individuals
>
>Given a certain research problem on this LOA one can quite legitmately take
>the individual and see how they interact in the structured setting of a
>Bureacracy. Here the Bureacracy functions as the structure with individuals
>as agents. Move up a level, and we drop the individual and the Bureacracy
>now appears as our agent with the state functioning as the structured
>context. Move up another level and the state now appears as our agent with
>the international structures (normally construed as anarchy) as the
>structure. On any level what is agent and what is structure changes. (you
>can probably also see how on this model the individual are only affected by
>international structures insofar as these structures are mediated through
>the state, thus giving primacy to the state, both analytically and
>normatively).


Colin 

What is LOA ?

I must say that I liked the above model:
Does society/individual / states work that way ?  Thinking about the social
structural trend today from capitalism to environment social consciousness
to socialism by diverting social structures towards environmental politics /
economies, is something we should really look at very seriously. In essence,
this social structure  though causally generated might be ontological in
future re- organisation of society. 

When I landed on the article by  David. M. Wilkinson lecture in biology at
Liverpool university : " The economics of extinction ",  reading from this
article, one might suggest that states  though not all, might not have an
intention to embrace the frame work in which the economics of extinction
functions. We can take an example of demonstrations against state decision
or pressure groups.
Then why does the intentions among individuals, for let us say environmental
awareness can't be envisaged by the bureaucracy even  if the state might
have the infrastructure / structure on ground ? Because laws takes time to
change on which the state has it's pillars. Thus generating individual
protests or at times absenting social values.

This is a very interesting ontological question, since in  essence human
society has had a variety of economies/ social /individual actions and
structures which by the way got extinct.

With international media and electronic network there are two scenarios,
absenting the international views or actualising them through individual
mediation (i.e. Western type of democracy / and predatory economies ),
though it's effects are very clear i.e. maginalisation. Even though, the
intention might not be economics or whatever intended goal for the
individual as well as society or state, it so often happens that what comes
of such action are no the intended effects . Capitalism , environmental
dangers , criminality etc.

Then could we conclude that communism or other types of political ideology
give way to world political and economic universalism  through the
individual, even where the state has refused to mediate such to it's
citizens ? The above model has a loop hole in that regard. Since what
happened in the Eastern European societies was mediate  through the
individuals creating a social psychological infrastructure which in the end
erased the state structures, resulting into a social structure which effects
are a new state structure. 

Now going back to the TMSA model , I fear to say that that model is not
independent (RB mentions it;  the negative critic of TMSA ) , though it's
ontological monovalence is well placed and clear. For instance, power to
change is not always a human factor but can also be a contingent
relationship though mediated agentively. Given the * state * of (society),
there given rules and regulations which must be followed.  This is what has
happened in Eastern Europe, whereby the individuals have overwhelmingly
elected / voted the post communist regimes which are well versed with the
values, rules and regulations which are deemed as necessary in their day to
day life styles. 
 
In fact, society does not act independently since the normative values
should be followed by the individual since those very society normative are
proved may be to be dangerous, inadequate , irrelevant or merely nothing. In
this regard society and individuals are independent of ( social values )
while in time and space are reorganised and agentified by those very rules
and regulation which society and individuals see as crucially important.
Then the question of socialisation comes into question. TMSA with human
agency, inaction/(conscious or unconscious, compliance,
indirectness(dialectic .158 pp)

Let me put this fact in focus;

A masia from the remote part of Tanzania marries to a Germany Lady.
They stay in one of the Germany cities for a solid ten year period. One day
they decide to travel to the Masia land and live as they Masia do. The Masia
man after some very long habitation in the German society which bye the way
he does not identify with completely , has changed character of his person
into what I call a middle way, some little bit of compliance and consciousness.
In Masia land there are some normals totally unacceptable to him. 
The Lady , though not all totally agreed with the norms here in Masia land
the, love and respect (structure of passion/ material , indirectness) for
her husbands background agentifies her decision of appreciating the beauty
and nature of this society. (with human agency but not society). The above,
might be contrary to the views of the STATE .

In this regard, the mans views and lessons from Germany contravene the
objectives of the state ,  i.e. people should not be forced off their land.

What happens here is the fact that, the state(collective) is the
reproduction of what the husband in the above sense might deem right for his
Masia society. In sense he is the  * agent * . But we should remember that
his society has an economy centred around cattle , which if that economy is
to survive state transformational and reproductional abilities must be
curtailed by negating it thus giving room for the believes of the Germany
lady. because she reason people here are not egoistic and experience from
her background.

I think here we get to the problem whereby we have * state * in direct
conflict with the individual and society. Next it is not always that
individuals are transformative agents of society as the values in society
might be negated by the individuals which in TMSA is an agent. On the
otherside we should also realise that social norms and values might not be
set by society in order to be followed by society or  individuals.

In this regard, I Andrew Sayers bring about what he calls "contingent
factors". This bring the whole concept of intentionality into question !
Since contingent factors are not intending but caused stochastically.
This is the very first thing i pointed out . Capitalism never intended
environment problems but  maximisation, the end result is unintended effect.
Which neither society nor individual had an sense of awareness before it it
actually takes place.

correct me if I missunderstood something.

Bwanika.



My argument is that attention to the TMSA disrupts this
>picture in a fundamental way. In its place I would probably introduce
>something like Derek Layder's research map. which has four levels, and I
>can't remember them all now, but on this model individuals are constituted
>by a complex of socail structures some of which will be local, domestic and
>global in nature (global capital for example). Also there is a normative
>(emancipatory) point in that the relations between global forces impact on
>groups within the state and are enabled by groups within the state, thus CR
>allows IR scholars to explore how gender relations, for example, impact upon
>international outcomes and vice versa. On the LOA model such interchange
>must be mediated by the levels above and below. Hope this makes some sense.
>
>Anyway, in the final analysis, whatever our disagreements, it seems everyone
>has agreed that individuals simply won't go away. For Tobin I suppose this
>means that for my discipline, even if Tobin is happy to talk of the state as
>an agent, he would have to supplement this with the individual agents he
>agrees are so necessary. 
>
>Intentionality:
>
>Basically, I accept Howard's reading here, which is basically RB's.
>Specifically, I totally endorse Howard's point that, 'I don't think there is
>such a thing as "non-intentional human action,". This is not to deny the
>unconscious of course, but the distinction here is that between real reasons
>and rationalisations. An agent must be able to give an accout of their
>activities such that it might be described as an action, if not then it
>could not be described as such. Falling of a cliff is not the same as
>jumping, even if the end result is the same. However, the real reason why an
>individual might jump of a cliff may not be the rationalisation they
>themselves employ, but their jumping could not be described as such without
>the rationalisation. The only other example I could give is RB's notion of
>an action being overdetermined, such as a firing squad. Here the decision to
>shoot by a reluctant member of the firing squad, faced with the threat of
>being shot themselves if they fail to shoot, can be said to be
>overdetermined, even if we might be straining to say that they intended to
>shoot. 
>
> Howards also argues, however,
>
>>Where does the meaning exist?  It exists in practice and in the
>>material institutional embodiments of practice.  Books, newspapers,
>>taking out the garbage, collecting it, etc.  A common decision is
>>the same.  What is done is what it is.  Practice fixes meaning. 
>>A,B,C and D act.  They announce their intention is to do X.  But
>>because of their practice we know this is pretense and that ABCD's
>>intention was to do Y.  Maybe they all thought their intention was
>>to do X.
>
>Here again I think there is some confusion between unintended consequences
>and intended action. If ABCD all get together and have differing viewpoints
>but reach a compromise (X), then it is they who have reached the compromise,
>and X would not get done if they had not compromised. Where does this
>compromise exist? How can the act X get done if ABCD refuse to compromise
>and hold onto their original positions? If it still gets done but there had
>been no compromise we would not say that X was intended, but that it was an
>unintended consequence.
> 
>>Since meaning is a social form, I think we can speak of an
>>organization's intention. 
>
>I am not sure how the move from meaning to intention is being made here. And
>once again, where does the organisations intention reside? What does it mean
>to say Union carbide intended the accident at Bohpal? what actually happened
>was that certain embodied persons decided (under structural pressures) to
>cut corners to make profits to pursue narrowly concieved self-interest. 
>
>Anyway, at times I have felt I was talking to myself, since many of the
>concerns raised are also the ones I myself have had. I am still arguing that
>based on the TMSA (which is predicated on human agency) that the state is
>not an agent. We talk of states acting but to return to Jessop we must
>remember that '[i]t is not the state which acts: it is always specific sets
>of politicians and state 
>officials located in specific parts of the state system.'  
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----
>
>Colin Wight
>Department of International Politics
>University of Wales, Aberystwyth
>Aberystwyth
>SY23 3DA
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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>
>



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